Women’s History: “Miss Monelle is quite a character.”
Lavinia Goodell, November 21, 1869
In 1869, in an effort to improve her German language skills, Lavinia Goodell moved from her aunt and uncle’s home in Brooklyn into an upper room of a home on East 23rd Street in Manhattan owned by a German doctor. For a time she had a roommate who was a medical student at the Woman’s Medical College and Infirmary, an institution recently opened by sisters Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell. Lavinia found Nancie Monelle very companionable, although they had divergent interests.
Lavinia wrote to her sister:
My new chum is quite a character. She is short,…